As previously reported, beginning Aug. 1, 2012, five cents from each ticket sold at participating theatres will be put toward the fund that will become available on Aug. 1, 2013. The money raised will be used to establish an endowment for the independent theatre territory (20 percent), as well as unrestricted grants (50 percent) and an emergency fund (20 percent) for independent theatres and artists. Ten percent of the monies raised will cover costs to run the fund.
The goal is to maintain the vitality and diversity of New York's smaller, independent theatre community, which doesn't draw as much attention as Broadway and Off-Broadway's commercial fare.
Tony Award winner Norbert Leo Butz is among the artists to lend a voice of support. "I have done most of my work on Broadway," he said in a statement. "I have won two Tony awards and been in a total of 8 Broadway shows. So why do I support the LIT fund? 'Cause I can't afford to go see plays unless I am in them, that's why. I think we are discovering that the economic model for commercial productions above 34th Street (and several below) has become, at best, obsolete, and, at worst, unethical. Thank God for our little theatres!!! Who else is gonna provide the city with honest and undiluted theatrical voices? I have to work mostly uptown, but when I want to SEE theatre, I head Off-Off Broadway. Everyone knows that's where the real action is!"
Theatre organizations participating in the LIT Fund follow: CSV Cultural Center, Dixon Place, HERE, Horse Trade Theater Group, The Irondale Center, The Living Theater, The New Ohio Theatre, and Performance Space 122 will join emerging and established companies including Agony Productions, The Amoralists, Blue Coyote Theater Group, Caps Lock Theatre, The Civilians, Clancy Productions, Decades Out, Deconstructive Theatre Project, Ego Actus, Elephant Run District, ETdC Projects’ Lab, Flux Theatre Ensemble, Gemini CollisionWorks, Inverse Theater, Jewish Plays Project, John Montgomery Theatre Company, Mabou Mines, Mind the Gap Theatre, The Nerve Tank, New Georges, New York Neo-Futurists, No. 11 Productions, Parallel Exit, The Present Company, Purple Rep, Rabbit Hole Ensemble, Rising Phoenix Rep, Sinking Ship Productions, Small Pond Entertainment, Sponsored by Nobody, Stolen Chair Theater Company, Surf Reality, terraNOVA Collective, Theatre Askew, Untitled Theater Company #61, Vampire Cowboys Theatre Company and Wreckio Ensemble.
Visit litfund.org.
